Japan Data

Most Desirable Places to Live in the Kansai Region

Lifestyle

The most desirable place to live in the Kansai region, according to a 2018 online survey, is the neighborhood around Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi Station in Hyōgo Prefecture.

Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi and Umeda Stations Stay Popular

The 2018 online survey of the most desirable places to live in the Kansai region ranked the areas around Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi and Umeda Stations first and second. This is the sixth straight year for the stations to take the top two spots in that order in the survey of people living in the region’s six prefectures. They were followed in the ranking by Kobe-Sannomiya, Nanba, Senri-Chūō and other stations that have regularly appeared in the top ten.

Kobe-Sannomiya had fallen to seventh place in the 2017 ranking, but bounced back to third this year. There were no major changes this year among the most popular areas, apart from Kusatsu Station, which rose to 10th place from its 18th-place ranking last year.

The Hankyū Kobe Main Line had four of the top-10 stations, including first-place Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi, while Osaka Metro Midōsuji Line had five, including second-ranked Umeda and Tennōji, located right next to the tallest building in Japan—the Abeno Harukas Building. Along with the Hankyū and Osaka Metro stations, Japan Railway stations fared well in the survey, with five stations among the top-20, including 10th place Kusatsu.

The online survey of residents of Osaka, Kyoto, Hyōgo, Nara, Shiga, and Wakayama Prefectures aged 20 to 49 has been conducted by the Tokyo-based real estate listing company Recruit Sumai since 2010. For the 2018 survey, there were a total of 4,600 valid responses.

Top 20 Most Desirable Places to Live

Train Station Ranking
2018 2017 2016
Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi 1 1 1
Umeda 2 2 2
Kobe Sannomiya 3 7 3
Nanba 4 3 7
Senri-Chūō 5 4 5
Shukugawa 6 4 5
Tennōji 7 9 10
Okamoto 8 6 4
Esaka 9 8 9
Kusatsu 10 18 19
Kyoto 11 14 17
Takarazuka 12 11 8
Kobe 13 17 14
Mikage 14 10 11
Osaka 15 38 24
Katsura 16 23 35
Ashiyagawa 17 12 15
Kawaramachi 18 outside top 50 27
Ibaraki 19 16 23
Nishinomiya 20 32 20

Compiled by Nippon.com based on a Recruit Sumai Company press release on March 14, 2018.

Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi and Umeda ranked first and second, respectively, among respondents from all age cohorts. For stations ranked third and lower, Nanba and Kyoto were popular among those in their twenties and thirties, while Okamoto, Shukugawa, and Takarazuka ranked highly among forty-somethings.

The top-ranked stations by home prefecture of respondents are as listed below. As in the survey for the Kantō region, respondents tended to choose locations in their respective prefectures.

Most Desirable Place to Live by Home Prefecture of Respondents

Osaka Prefecture Umeda
Kyoto Prefecture Katsura
Hyōgo Prefecture Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi
Nara Prefecture Yamato-Yagi
Shiga Prefecture Kusatsu
Wakayama Prefecture Wakayama
(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi, the most desirable location in the survey. © Pixta.)

Osaka Kansai